The list of things more infuriating than waiting around in the freezing cold for a cab is scarce. Unfortunately, given the city’s inability to provide adequate public transportation (especially late at night), its chronic lack of workers, and the asinine system limiting the number of taxi plates available, this is all too often a reality. If for no other reason than deterring drinking and driving, this issue screams to be addressed.
The City of Calgary, despite growing by hundreds of thousands of people from 1986 until 2006, did not issue a single new taxi plate licence in that span of time. Last year city council finally decided to end this insanity and issue new licences. The result was a decision to issue 100 new accessible taxi licences (accessible taxis are a new concept designed to accommodate those who require special care in the taxi), and six new regular taxi licences. This is obviously not enough. Incompetence of this magnitude is analogous to opening a homeless shelter in Tuscany.
The main cab companies complain of a shortage of drivers. This has to do with the general shortage of workers plaguing the province, as well as the fact that obtaining a cab driver’s licence involves a six-week process and $700 fee. While this is certainly a problem, simply issuing cab driving licences is not an adequate solution to the problem. It is questionable whether or not incentive exists to draw individuals away from other jobs to drive for one of the established cab companies. Also, there remains the issue of long waiting times to get through to these companies on the phone. The city must add to the number of independent cab operators in the city.
In 2006, 996 individuals applied for a taxi plate licence during the period of Jul. 31 and Aug. 25, 2006, the application dates for the 2006 Taxi Plate Licence Selection Process. These licences allow the successful applicant to operate their own independent cab. Each individual is required to have driven for one or more of the taxi cab companies in the city for 1,500 hours during the course of the last 12 months. Of this large cadre of applicants, only 107 individuals were granted a licence (the additional one regular taxi cab licence that was granted escapes any explanation that I can find). Looking through various media reports from the 2006 holiday season, it is apparent that there was an incredible shortage of taxis, giving rise to much vehement criticism from the population, who were likely to have waited more than an hour after calling a taxi. The reports from that period blame the problem on the systemic lack of workers in the province resulting from the oil boom. This explanation, though, clearly does not give any thought to the fact that only a few months prior to this crisis, 889 individuals failed to receive a licence to operate a cab. One must also consider whether or not the application process, requiring licence seekers to dole out $100 in order to be processed, and if granted a licence an additional $5,000, was itself a limiting factor that may have deterred even more individuals from seeking a licence.
This decrepit system of granting independent taxi plate licences is infinitely damaging to the accessibility of taxis to the citizens of Calgary. The City of Calgary does not feel that more taxi licences are necessary, believing, rather, that there are more than enough licences in Calgary to deal with the present population. While this may be the case, it must be considered that of the 1,311 licences, the vast majority are operated by major companies. It is apparent that there is a much greater incentive for individuals to operate a cab for themselves than to drive for one of the established companies. While an individual may not be too enthralled with the idea of working for one of the main taxi services, they would surely be more inspired to pursue the possibility of operating a taxi themselves.
The problem goes deeper than the mere lack of independent operators. Anyone who has tried to contact one of the major companies via telephone late on a weekend night knows the near impossibility of the task and can appreciate the problem has this other dimension. Waiting on the phone for that damn taxi is just as bad as the ostensible lack of drivers. A signal board can only handle a certain call volume, and so, irrespective of whether a taxi is available, getting through to the company to order one is a monumental task. Standing outside a bar on a cold winter night, constantly having to redial a number that only produces a busy tone, is frustrating.
Adding to all this is the knowledge that, if you are staying at the bar until it closes around 2 a.m., there is no other public transit option. The C-Train, already severely limited in its viability by only offering two lines, is not even running at this time. Busses no longer run after you escape from the bar, either. Taxis are the only option left.
In a sprawling city that requires vehicular transport to get just about anywhere, it is not unreasonable to assume that this striking difficulty in finding a safe way home after a night out will only lead to more instances of drinking and driving. Surely, it is unreasonable to say that every person forced to wait an extra little while to get a cab will resort to this dangerous and ignoble option, but it seems that enough will to make the consideration relevant and indeed urgent. As such, it is imperative to solve the problem. In order to do this, the city, in addition to looking into extending public transport operating times (if only from Thu. to Sat.), needs to issue more taxi plate licences to independent operators.